AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Still no time to play, big guy.” Indigo rose, shaking out her skirt and strolling downstream. The gryphon lumbered behind her while she studied the river.
In the water, she saw the attack on Billings. Stumbling on a rock, she righted herself, carrying on farther into the past. There was Roark bathing in her river, his back turned, thick muscles bunched, his big-ass Phoenix tattoo so alive it almost flew off his skin.
In a broad segment of the river, she watched the hot Commander Kole and the icy blonde Skyler trapped on Darque, going at it big time in a cave. Lots of bumping and grinding. The ice queen wasn’t so icy in this vision. Indigo continued to wander along the bank. Ram and Denim shared a sandwich in New Orleans. In a deep portion of the water, a snarly Dax struggled to get his orgasm-worthy vamp bod out of an electric car while a happy Chiara bounced from the passenger side. Near the same spot, Indigo eyed Sabine and Nico arguing nose-to-nose before he pushed her onto the ground where he fell on top of his nymph lover, tearing at her clothes. Indigo’s stroll took her along a grassy slope where she paused to see Rein confront Braelyn in a Seattle alley, an event which led her beloved nephew to find his mate.
All the past visions put a smile on her face, making her want to kick back while she munched on buttered popcorn as she played the reruns. Almost better than reliving past seasons of The Walking Dead. But she wasn’t here to enjoy Firebrand porn or re-ogle Roark’s magnificent body. She was here to find Arisen Dawn’s garrison.
With a sigh, she moved on.
Ouch!
She snatched back the arm which brushed against a leafy green plant.
Damn.
Distracted, she had wandered into an area overgrown with deadly mangnaw bushes. They flourished from the top of the hillside to water’s edge. She halted, still clutching the arm bitten by the deceptive plant with lip-like blooms. Lovely red flowers until you touched them. Then their gaping maws opened, complete with poison-coated teeth. Eradicated a millennia ago on Earth, it still grew on Scath and Darque. Lucky for her, she’d only been nipped. No blood.
Indigo waved a hand, casting a spell to bind the plants’ mouths. She walked through the grove, unmolested, free to continue studying the events of the past.
An hour later, she rubbed tired eyes. So many images made her pupils ache. She pulled to an abrupt stop. Finally, a break. In the watery past, Cerberus stood on a precipice, watching Arisen Dawn soldiers train in open fields. No garrison. No construction. It hadn’t been built yet. She had come too far.
She curled a long strand of hair around her finger. Okay. If she went too far in the past, it didn’t exist. Too close to the present and Cerberus hid it behind a spell. Turning, Indigo retraced her steps, searching for the right moment.
Shielding her eyes from the glare, she watched the sun dip closer to the horizon. Her gryphon clasped his teeth around her forearm gently. She took it as a sign to stop at the bend in the river where a soft breeze whispered through the trees, making the grasses lean away from the bank.
Indigo’s gaze bounced from one event to another, looking for whatever Oskar had seen. Nothing. As she was about to move on, something caught her eye. With a wide smile on her face, she patted her gryphon’s scaly neck. “You clever boy.”
His lids lowered at the compliment.
A massive building project was underway. A crew layered stones upon stones until a walled fortress stretched into the sky. From this angle, she recognized the surrounding hills along with the nearby river.
Oskar snorted a plume of smoke when she jumped up and down, her bracelets clinking against one another, her excitement set to music. Her happiness, though, was a short tune. Only several notes really before the ground beneath her feet rumbled. The river, always smooth in this sector of the past, tossed onto the banks.
Something was very wrong.
Overhead, rolling black clouds gathered while lightning shot to the ground, setting fires. Rain bucketed from the sky, extinguishing the blazes, drenching her clothes and the soil. In seconds, her feet gave way. She tumbled into the river, scrambling to get out of Oskar’s path. With his hind legs in the air, his forearms waving wildly, his king-size lion’s rump sliding down the ooey-gooy bank like a gryphon sled, he bulleted into the Am, making a very big splash.
Too tired to lift her muck-soaked ass out of the shallow pool of water, Indigo punched the D-chip lodged in her wrist and swiped a muddy hand across her wet face. Oskar, struggling to climb the bank, shimmied from head to tail like a wet dog. At the top, he shook out his wings, feathering them dry. With two thunderous downward strokes, he rose, circling higher and higher until he disappeared.
Fair weather friends.
Her caller answered. Cadmon, I’m on my way to you. Have a map of Darque on the table. I know where the Arisen Dawn garrison is. Oh, and I could use a warm shower along with clean clothes.
Admittedly, she could whammy herself spotless and fashion a new outfit, but the feeling was never the same. Add buttered popcorn. I have a hankering.
****
Lort waited alone in the temple before the sun began its descent, his heart pounding against his chest, his breathing deep, his excitement palpable.
The hour approached.
He had tied his fate to Cerberus, the greatest mage to ever live. A male with power, drive, vision. Along with something the vampire admired most. A hungry greed. It had been a great day when Lort opened his door to a stranger.
In his abode in the hills of Bludhaven with his fangs buried in a blood slave’s tasty neck, Lort closed his eyes, savoring being stroked in the most delicious way. A knock. He almost didn’t respond, but a voice demanded he cease his pleasure to answer.
When he did, a warlock brushed past, ordering him to dismiss his toy.
Strangely, he did.
